there is a sense governing is already under way. that you already know that this plaed started something that he intends to finish in his second term. sort of a sense of continuity, well informed expectation about what kind of president this is going to be and where he is likely to go. when president obama was inaugurated the first time, there was none of that certainty and expectation, right? the country and all of us were caught up in the historical enormity of the fact that the united states of america was about to swear in our first african-american president. and that eight years of republican administration under bush and cheney was coming to an end. that inauguration in 2009 was such a dramatic break from the past, toward a whole new future that i don't think anybody expects that we will have an inauguration quite as consequential as the last one. maybe ever again. but we now know, as part of the historical record, that while the whole country was marveling at the enormity of the transition we were making on inauguration nigh